A bank's head office on the bankers' street
Threadneedle Street runs east from the Bank junction towards Bishopsgate, and nearly every building along it was put up by, or for, the money trade. At its western end stands the Bank of England, the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, behind the long, windowless outer wall designed by Sir John Soane. The Royal Exchange faces it across the street, its portico looking onto the junction. As addresses go, it is about as close to the centre of the City's history as it is possible to sleep.
Threadneedles occupies a Victorian bank headquarters a short walk along the street: a grand building from the middle of the nineteenth century whose main banking hall once received the bank's customers beneath a glass dome. The building was converted into a hotel in the early years of this century, and the banking hall became its lobby and lounge.
Few hotels in the City have kept so much of what their buildings used to be. There is no attempt to pretend it was ever anything but a bank. The scale of the hall, the height of the ceilings and the solidity of everything around you are the point of the place.
The dome, and why the lobby is the reason to stay
The stained glass dome is what people remember. It sits high above the old banking hall, and by day the room beneath takes its colour from it. After dark, lit from within and seen from the armchairs underneath, it turns the lobby into one of the more unusual rooms in the City to sit in with a drink.
The effect is quieter than that description suggests. This is not a hotel of grand gestures or a loud bar scene; it is somewhere people stay because it is central, calm and a little out of the ordinary. For a guest who wants an address that feels like somewhere rather than anywhere, it is a good choice, and it is small enough that the staff are not managing a crowd.
As with every hotel named on this site, the desk has no arrangement with Threadneedles, contacts nobody there and leaves no name at its reception. It appears here because it is a good place to stay, and for no other reason.
EC2 once the offices empty
The City keeps office hours. By seven on a weekday evening the towers have emptied, the pubs that were full at six are winding down, and the streets around Bank take on a stillness that nothing in the West End can match. At weekends it is quieter still: many restaurants close from Friday night to Monday morning, and whole streets belong to whoever happens to be walking them.
For a hotel guest that is either a drawback or the whole attraction, and it helps to know which before booking. Anyone who wants a lively evening on the doorstep should look to the West End or to Shoreditch, fifteen minutes north. Anyone who would like to walk the old City at night, with the churches lit, the alleys empty and nobody else about, will find Threadneedle Street one of the best places to set out from.
The junction changes character too. Through the working day most traffic is kept out of it, and once the buses thin in the evening, the open ground in front of the Royal Exchange and Mansion House feels almost like a square.
A walk out from the door
Turn east and then drop into the alleys behind Cornhill, where the churches of St Michael and St Peter stand in their small yards and the lanes are too narrow for cars. Leadenhall Market is five minutes away, its Victorian glass roof and painted ironwork at their best when the shops beneath have shut and the lamps have been left on.
Further south, the Monument to the Great Fire stands close to where the fire started in Pudding Lane in 1666. Its height of 202 feet is said to match its distance from the site of the bakery, and the 311 steps to the viewing gallery are a reliable way to settle a dinner argument about who is fitter. Beyond it, London Bridge and the river are a few minutes on.
Nearer the hotel, the Royal Exchange's arcaded courtyard is a civilised place for a first glass while the City's day shift heads for the trains. From there the walk back to Threadneedle Street takes about a minute.
Arranging a visit to the hotel
Hotel bookings are arranged under arrival at your door, and the process is the same here as anywhere else. Send the desk the hotel, the name on the reservation, the hour, the length and the companion you would like. The reply repeats all of it back in writing with the figure and the arrival window, and the room number is asked for once, at that stage, purely to bring her to the right door.
She arrives as your guest. Nobody at reception is spoken to, nobody is asked to ring the room, and she goes straight up. If you would rather begin downstairs under the dome with a drink, say so, and the confirmation names the lobby rather than the room. You hand her the fee in person as she comes in, before the evening starts.
Why the desk insists on every detail in writing is set out in why every booking is confirmed in writing. In short, a written confirmation is something both sides can hold to, and in the City, where addresses sit close together and building names are easily confused, it removes nearly every way an arrival can go wrong. The ladder is the same here as anywhere else: £250 buys an hour, £500 buys two, and the four hour dinner date is £900, whatever the postcode and whatever the time.
Who the desk sends to Threadneedle Street
Guests who start from the auburn and red list will find Luna on it, and she is the natural first name for this address. Her evenings in Bank and Monument begin high, with the City laid out beneath a sunset, and come back down to a table near the Monument or a walk to the bridge. The Central line brings her to Bank from home in a quarter of an hour.
Tina is the other name the desk sends here most often. Small, quick and completely at home in the City, she likes the Royal Exchange courtyard for a first drink and the alleys behind Cornhill for the walk afterwards, and she is free from six on weekdays. For a quieter evening in older rooms, Sonya, early thirties and calm, is at her best once the square mile has fallen silent.
The desk's City of London page goes through the other hotels around Bank, Liverpool Street and St Paul's, along with the stations, the walking times and the arrival windows the desk usually writes for each.
Filed under: most of the names in this note also sit on the brunettes list in by request.